My Crazy Classes

I'm hungry.  May I have some __________?
The kids had to write this in their notebook and write what they wanted to eat.  One of my lower level students, Jung Han, who only wants me to help him says proudly "May I have some... some Shelley!".  I tell him no and he says "But I want some Shelley". Really he only said my name because he knew how to spell it, but I told him to write chicken instead.  He makes me smile, besides his apparent cannibalism.

I don't understand how my students can't remember what I taught them last week, or last month.  But for some reason they remember my full name (even though I no longer wear my nametag) that I told them last year, or the beginning of this semester.  It boggles my mind- they love calling me by my whole name.  So the Korean alphabet doesn't have the "z" sound.  It sounds more like a "ja".  Jung Bae, a pretty smart kid, turns to me and says, "You're name is Shelley Desoju".  I gladly take that name.


On Vietnam
Apparently Vietnam sounds like Vienna sausage (which they find extremely funny) but other things my grade 6's come up with in substitution of Vietnam is "Big Momma"

Winter Camp
on Easter after telling them that Jesus dies on Good Friday and goes to Heaven on Sunday:
"Easter good because Jesus die!"

when trying to figure out what my one kid is saying about the water, I ask if the water is dirty.  My grade 5 student chimes in and says:
"
Shelley, this is no Africa. Korea water clean. Africa water dirty. You are in Korea"

When showing off my sunglasses my grade 5 kids tell me that they look like Mafia glasses.  Apparently I'm not in the Mafia for having them, I'm the Godfather's granddaughter.

Christmas
Shelley: Where does Santa Claus live?
Grade 5 students: Norway!  Finland!! Antarctica! Canada!  America, must be America!! Europe!  England!
Here's Earth.  Here's Korea.  Here's the North Pole.

Shelley: Where is the North Pole?
Grade 5: Poland!

Shelley: Where is the North Pole?
Grade 5 students: North Korea!
Shelley: Does Santa Claus really live in North Korea?
Grade 5: hahahahahahah no!!!

Shelley: If you stand under mistletoe you have to kiss somebody.
Grade 4: squeals, ewwwww!!
Shelley: Do you like mistletoe?
Grade 4: NO!  Do you?
Shelley: uhh no.
Grade 4: hahahah you like!

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Shelley: Where does Santa live?
Grade 4: Santa obsoyo (translates to "There is no Santa!")
Shelley: There is a Santa!  Your parents help Santa!
Grade 4: No! No Santa!  Santa not real!
(So much for imagination!)

Although...
Shelley : Where does Santa live?
Grade 4: In your heart!
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I also had a grade 6 student run after me for a couple of blocks.  When I asked her where she lived and she pointed in the opposite direction, I asked her why she ran so far.  After she caught her breath, she says "Merry Christmas" and then ran off!

First Snowfall
Because Daegu is in a basin it rarely gets any snow.  There was rumour that we'd get some snow so I waited in anticipation for the wee bit of snow that would somehow make me feel like Christmas time. 
Alas, morning time rolls around and snow was abound!






Open Class
I don't know why this is really necessary, its so blatantly fake but I guess its a compulsory thing here.  You have to open up your class to two other English teachers from other schools and the supervisor of my area's education center (Dalseo-gu).  I wasn't too worried about it, but my grade 6's are tough.  For reasons I can't explain much more than this, I could only pick from my grade 6 classes.  Except for Halloween, this is the only other time I've had control for most of the class.  I did the same lesson for the previous three classes.

And what happens? The powerpoint decides it doesn't want to function in the middle of the class.  So the kids that were trying to be on their best behaviour became incredibly confused, and I had to explain a game and improv my way out of it.

Apparently I make good lesson plans.  I don't know if I'm a good teacher, the supervisor didn't say anything much more than that.  And I was told that my principal that speaks no English either scolded a kid or was wondering what the heck was going on during one of my activities.

Not so bad.

Halloween
My first class that I taught by myself.  My co-teachers were more than happy to not do any work so I could teach them.
I decided that the grade 4's would make Lollipop Ghosts, the grade 5's would draw Halloween pictures and the grade 6's would make a mask out of paper plates.  Needless to say they all were pretty successful except after classes were done they couldn't remember when Halloween was!
They don't really celebrate Halloween here- pumpkins are expensive, they don't dress up unless their hagwon has a Halloween party and there is definitely no trick or treating here.  I think the only way they know about it is because of the foreigner population and movies.

This is a House
My grade 5's are learning about rooms in a house and such and such so I got my mom to take pictures of my house. The consensus was that I'm rich.  I had a few kids ask me why I was in Korea if I had a house like that back home! Every time a new picture would go up some girls would sound like they were ready to faint or die with all the "ohhhhhhh's.... ahhhhhhh's".  Although some of the funnier moments were when showing a family picture, without fail boys and girls alike would tell me how handsome Corey is, and one boy said mom was beautiful and the whole class laughed at him!
They liked to state that Corey's room was a mess but they approved of his guitar and turtle.  They also now call Corey, Corey-a (Korea!). They believed the flag of Korea hanging in my room was fake.

Then I decided to play this game where they have to find the room by running to the front of the class.  Of my 4 classes of the day, one class had a guy spill his milk all over the boy in front of him and on the floor, and the second class had two boys start fighting.  I have no idea how it started or why, just these two boys went at it!

Ohhh boys.

Introductions
My first two weeks in Korea were dedicated to the kids learning about me.  They asked a gazillion questions, mainly in Korean, everything ranging from Canada's economic situation to what is special about Canada.  Its sad when the only answers you can give about what Canada is famous for that they understand is Justin Bieber, Sandra Oh, Niagara Falls and pizza and pasta (I know the food isn't special to Canada but try imagining how hard it would be to explain poutine to a bunch of kids that hardly understand basic English!).
This is what I find the breakdowns of my classes to be:
Grade 4- They are the cutest of the bunch.  They are the most enthusiastic to learn and you can act as goofy as you like with them.  They retain English much better, but maybe its because the textbook is actually updated and not lame like the other grades, and also English classes start at Grade 3, so its still intriguing to them.
Grade 5- I didn't like them at the beginning, but they're becoming my favourites.  They are a little more reserved but they like games.  Its unfortunate that the kids are all varied in proficiency because there are a few kids that just can't pick it up.  But, for the most part, they are adorable.
Grade 6- this is my difficult grade.  Most have no real desire to want to learn or speak English.  They very rarely speak and if they do its in Korean.  I can't blame them really- the textbook sucks, there's no real good games that they've been exposed to, but my co-teacher speaks to them in Korean half the time, how can they possibly retain any English if they're never using it even in English class?  Ahh well, I guess I'll have to change things.

1 comment:

  1. it sounds like you have had quite the adventure. I am new to korea and am looking for some cool people to hangout with since I've been having a hard time making friends. find me on fb I'd love to chat with you.

    liabw05@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete